The Blonde Diaries

It is day five now of our hurricane evacuation and today has proven to be quite an eventful day.  This morning I went ahead and finished ordering all of our tickets for our Disney trip.  We are officially set as far as Disney goes.  I just need to figure out how we are going to get there – via Houston or San Antonio.  I guess I will call Southwest in the next day or two.  Next, Mike remembered a former coworker that lives in my complex so we were able to confirm that I have no electricity or running water.  Now for the good news, there has been no looting, flooding, or major damage to my apartment complex so I should be safe.  I was able to finally get the complex management later in the day to confirm the above and they mentioned something about the refrigerator so I will be calling back in the morning to see if they are taking care of emptying out the food for me while I am gone (crossing fingers they will be). We are still holding out hope to run back to Houston this week to check on our apartments before vacation begins.  We keep seeing signage telling us not to go because of fuel shortages along the highway.  I’d hate to go and get stranded.  We are both off of work at least through Wednesday so that is nice.

I also made it to Northstar Mall here in San Antonio and fell in love with their Saks Fifth Avenue.  Well, that whole mall is laid out really nicely and some of the stores are actually better than the Galleria in Houston.  Saks had the most fabulous dressing rooms and super nice workers.  I will definitely try and go there a little more often for my shopping needs when I am in San Antonio.  I was able to pick up a new pair of jeans – Seven Dojos – that I have been eying for a few years now.  Only bad thing was that they were a size larger than my current jeans.  I really have got to cut the carbs after vacation and increase the running.

Lastly, we found a gym to take pity on us this afternoon and were able to go workout since i had packed lots of workout clothes thinking we were heading to my parents.  So if you are in the San Antonio/Selma/Converse area check out Gold’s Gym in Liveoak because they were the ones that were kind enough to give us the Hurricane Ike discount and work out for free instead of the $16.25/day/person rate.  The gym was very nice, spacious, and clean so I really appreciated it.

This was passed along to me from a friend of ours. The email was sent out as a joke by a company official when Hurricane Ike was still expected to be a Category 1 and not really too worrisome. So please read this as a lighthearted joke as it is not meant to be offensive at all. I got a kick out of it and only wished that my company had a sense of humor like this person’s company. If it makes any difference this came from an accounting/finance company so this should prove that some of us boring accountants/auditors have a sense of humor. lol

Office Procedures Concerning Storm and Office Closings

As we watch the progress of the storm, the following are the firm’s guidelines based upon the hurricane’s intensity:

Hurricane Category #1
No excuse for being late. Leave earlier to give extra time to avoid fallen trees and limbs.

Hurricane Category #2
Due to the horizontal rain, you may wear jeans.

Hurricane Category #3
Whereas most of the area will be flooded we suggest you avoid wearing open toe sandals when coming to work. Canoes will be provided to get to the building safely without getting wet.

Hurricane Category #4
More than likely there will be no electricity. Given that, we will have manual typewriters available to all staff members. Please take extra caution and wear water-proof make-up if Category 4 or above.

Hurricane Category #5
Velcro will be provided to keep you attached to your chairs when the windows blow out. For those that survive, we will have chocolatecake at 3:00 pm in the cafeteria.

Have A Nice Day!

Mike and I are entering evacuation day #4 from Hurricane Ike. Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day. We played babysitters to our little nephew Christopher and his buddy Nicholas. After that long day can I say that I am praying that I do not get blessed with the twin gene that is running through my family. There is no way I could handle two at once. I admire those that can. So during our babysitting Mike and I got sucked into the Ultimate Fighter Season 1 marathon on Spike TV. We weren’t expecting to watch it all day but we did until I put my foot down at 8pm and said I needed to get out of the baby house and take a break. So we went to Buffalo’s and watched the end of the LSU game. GEAUX TIGERS!!

We have started hearing from a few more of our friends who stayed behind. Power is starting to come back on the outer fringes of the South and Western parts of town but in general most people in Houston are still without power today and lots of people are without running water. Mike also finally heard from his work. Their building was undamaged except for the elevator system which is not working. So he is off on Monday for now as well. My building reported windows blown out and no elevators either. Wonder what the deal is with the elevator systems. No word on the client’s building yet.

On the light-harded side of things, the jokes are starting to fly to make everyone feel better after the hurricane. I will be posting one shortly as it was pretty funny. It came from a friend of Mike’s who is not in Houston but their company has offices down there like many others in Texas.

Hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and we get a free week off of work this week…..

This is the second hurricane that I have watched the before, during, and after from a far recently. The first was Hurricane Katrina and now Ike. For Katrina, I had actually just started working and was in Chicago for training. I didn’t exactly choose to evacuate but had I still been at home living with my parents in Baton Rouge I would have. After seeing what my parents went through with Katrina, Rita, and Gustave two weeks ago, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind to get out of town once Ike made his northward turn late this past week.

One of the hardest things to do as an evacuee is watch from a far via a television like I am doing now.  Mike’s sister has a huge lcd monitor in the living room that has been set to CNN for hours now.  What makes it worse is when you have loved ones that decided to stay behind because thing really won’t be that bad. You also start to worry about your home and work. Will you have something to come back to? The wait and feeling helpless to do something starts taking its toll. Mike and I have been hearing from our friends who decided to stay and so far everyone has faired well. No damage or flooding in their areas of town but there is no electricity and a few hours ago Mayor Bill White came on and announced a boil water mandate. So again due to no electricity we started texting again to everyone to let them know about that. The new problem, no electricity means no electric stoves which means boiling water is impossible right now. I just pray that things start getting cleaned up and turned back on soon. It will be interesting to go back home either later in the week or after vacation to see what is left and what we can do to help. With parts of downtown flooded and in shambles I just wonder when we can get back to work and get going again. Hurricane damage expenses and insurance accurals will be a large balance on our financials this year. Should be a fun busy season.

There is a saying that you may or may not have heard before: “Everything is bigger in Texas.” After moving here three years ago, I started noticing the truth in that statement. The people here like their big trucks, big steaks, and big hats among other things. So tonight after spending a day out of the house and away from the television or internet I can honestly say I was not surprised to hear that Hurricane Ike grew larger in size and was almost the size of the State of Texas. As I type this, the storm is 700 miles large factoring in the wind and clouds. When you look at the cloud map last night and early into this morning, the storm was almost the size of the Gulf of Mexico. That is one large storm. So yet again I can attest, the saying holds true, Everything is bigger in Texas.

If you are in the coastal stretch of Galveston up to Beaumont, I am sending prayers and good thoughts your way. I hope the storm continues to move quickly and does not decide to slow, strenthen, or stall in the area.